His life is in the pits
Success in the world's most popular, high-tech and, some might say, glamorous form of auto racing -- Formula One -- can often come down to one decision: when to stop and pit for fuel and tires.
"It sounds easy enough, but it's a terribly complex decision," said Steve Matchett, the technical analyst for F1 coverage on the Speed Channel, the cable network devoted to motorsports . "Because of the difficulty of passing [on the track], a lot of changes in position happen in the pits, which makes strategy terribly important. It's a very dicey business; it can win or lose a race."
There are so many complex factors involved that the Renault F1 team went to Harvard in search of help.
Jacomo Corbo, 28, a doctoral student in computer science, helped Renault defend its world championship last season by using everything from game theory and econometrics to the study of the stability and efficiency of global contracts -- all in the name of developing a pit-stop strategy.
"My job is to analyze the input and variables at play," Corbo said. "Every kilogram of fuel in the car makes it heavier and will slow the car by some amount. The other parameter is the degradation of the tires; with every lap you lose rubber and chemical grip, and the car will get slower."
Calculating the optimal pit strategy to get to the end of a race is easy when the track is empty. Where it becomes complex for Corbo is including the other 20 cars -- anticipating their fuel loads and pit strategy to get his team's two cars in and out of the pits ahead of traffic, which is known in racing as being in "clean air." In F1 racing, this is crucial because the aerodynamic design of the cars often makes it difficult for a faster car to pass a slower car.
"The car in front of you disturbs the air flow and you lose downforce, which means you can't carry the same speed into the corners, and you can't overtake," Corbo said.
This lack of on-track passing is F1's main flaw, according to many NASCAR fans. It's also the reason Corbo, whose Harvard studies focus on the rules of engagement in a variety of games, has a job.
A native of Montreal, Corbo grew up as a tifosi, a term used to describe the ardent fans of the Italian Ferrari team (Corbo's father is Italian, and his uncle owns a tifosi-friendly espresso bar in Montreal's Little Italy). After graduating with a degree in mechanical engineering from McGill University in Montreal, he set out to land a highly competitive job at one of the 11 F1 teams. He got nothing. "If it said entry-level, there would literally be thousands of applicants," he said.
He began his post-doctoral work at Harvard, but kept his eye on the F1 news looking for an opportunity. In 2005, he saw one. Corbo's engineering specialty is control systems, so he entered an engineering competition affiliated with the UK-based Renault team that was looking for new F1 ideas. He submitted a proposal for a new system for automated fault diagnosis that would allow the cars to keep operating if some systems failed.
He lost the competition but he said he's not sure that wasn't intentional, because the Renault team pulled him aside immediately and asked about something else on his resume: "They said, 'We learned that you're doing your dissertation at Harvard on game theory,' " he said .
Corbo was hired as a race strategist in early 2006. He took a leave of absence from Harvard and was quickly thrown into the task of defending the team's world championship. At the season's first race in Bahrain, he presented a report outlining a strategy for the race. He thought it would be viewed as a suggestion.
"I was a little bit shocked because the team looked at the numbers and said 'Thank you for that, that's what we'll do,' " he said .
Renault won the race, edging out the legendary Ferrari driver Michael Schumacher by just over one second. They trusted the rookie, and he delivered.
Corbo went on to play an important role in helping the team win its second straight drivers' and constructors' championship. He was in.
It probably doesn't hurt that Corbo has the stylish European good looks (his mother is French-Canadian) that fit in well in the ultra posh world of the F1 pits. "It's weird, but I'm on a first-name basis with three billionaires," he said, including his boss, Renault team director Flavio Briatore, a charming, 57-year-old Italian known for liaisons with much younger supermodels (in 2004, he had a daughter with Heidi Klum).
But this year has not been so rosy for Briatore and the Renault team. They lost Fernando Alonso, who had won two straight drivers' world championships, to the McLaren-Mercedes team, and the shift to a new tire manufacturer has affected the car's performance. The team is currently languishing in fourth place.
Corbo returned to Harvard in November but continues his work with the Renault team, juggling his schoolwork with jaunts to the 16 countries on the F1 calendar (he maintains an apartment in Cambridge and another in Bristol, England, near the team's headquarters).
Though he has many things to be proud of in his short F1 career, one that sticks out is the Renault poster that has gone up in his uncle's espresso shop.
"They still have a Schumacher poster," he said. "But I think they're the only Italians who root for Renault."
Fact sheet
Education:Hopes to finish his doctorate in spring 2008.
Family: His father, Fiorentino, owns a commercial/industrial heating and air conditioning company; his mother, Denise, is a nurse; his brother, Nicola, 26, is a law student.
Hobbies: Enjoys traveling (which is fortunate, because he was on the road 26 weeks last year) and adventure racing, a sport that combines orienteering with disciplines such as biking, paddling, and mountain climbing as teams try to make their way to a finish line through rugged terrain. Corbo has competed in races that last as long as 36 hours.
On Hotels: "I've become their worst nightmare," he says. "I'll be there for a week. . . so I'll move the furniture around, ask for extra lamps, take things off the wall. I need to be comfortable or it's going to make for a long season." 